What's actually going on with Halo Infinite's graphics?
It's fair to say that the response to Microsoft's gameplay reveal for Halo Infinite in its July 2020 Xbox Games Showcas…
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DF: Halo Infinite Gameplay Reveal Analysis: Are The Graphics Really Flat?
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They just posted it and its 20 min.
But so far he says it looks "flat" because a specific time of day the demo is in.
The game uses dynamic lighting not pre baked. So you see alot of enemies for example in shadow and so they dont create a shadow. And then can look flat.
He gives Death Stranding of a game that might have similar issues, but the artistic choices in that game do a much better job of accounting for the deficiencies of the lighting system.
C'mon, That same time of day is really good at showing off other titles visuals and they don't look flat
Dynamic lighting without any ray tracing means that all segments taking place in shadow will look pretty crappy.
Made it about 4:30 in before I couldn't understand what was being said. That's pretty good for me and a DF video.
This is what I've been saying, it seems like they're all in on their Ray Tracing patch. The current lighting system seems to have been disregarded.
A certain game looks like art at low light situations. In fact you might be itching to take a screen shot because of the low sun and a dramatic arrangement of flowers, water, and wildlife. My current desktop is a picture made from a low light part of that game, which has dynamic day night.
Maybe when the game get closer and closer to release all of that work to make the light dynamic will pay off in Halo, especially with ray tracing.
That NPC's face looked worse after the ray tracing in that Metro Exodus example.
Maybe when the game get closer and closer to release all of that work to make the light dynamic will pay off in Halo, especially with ray tracing.
That NPC's face looked worse after the ray tracing in that Metro Exodus example.
Love Alex's videos, will give this a watch.
Infinite didn't blow me away graphically like I was expecting it to. The combat and sandbox gameplay looks awesome though. It was a good showing, but not the home run that it needed to be.
Infinite didn't blow me away graphically like I was expecting it to. The combat and sandbox gameplay looks awesome though. It was a good showing, but not the home run that it needed to be.
so basically.
halo uses dynamic lighting, but the demo was set during a time of day where there was not a lot natural light. many models (e.g. characters, items, weapons) have textures which depend on being directly hit by dynamic light to look good, and so lose detail when they are in shadow. this is one of the shortcomings of using dynamic light.
he compares the game to the last of us 2 which uses static baked in lights. tlou2 has much nicer looking dark areas because of that, but you could never bake those kind of details into an large openspace like halo.
halo uses dynamic lighting, but the demo was set during a time of day where there was not a lot natural light. many models (e.g. characters, items, weapons) have textures which depend on being directly hit by dynamic light to look good, and so lose detail when they are in shadow. this is one of the shortcomings of using dynamic light.
he compares the game to the last of us 2 which uses static baked in lights. tlou2 has much nicer looking dark areas because of that, but you could never bake those kind of details into an large openspace like halo.
Love the example with Metro Exodus. Widespread adoption of RT GI is something of dreams for me. My biggest gripe with real-time rendering is the lack of self-shadowing and indirect lighting; games like Control and Metro have spoiled me!
Said this in another thread, but:
I think this video is a great explanation of 3d art and rendering techniques to non-artists, something which i think DF has been not very good at in the past. Fantastic video for that alone.
But i think the last bit about how the actual assets and specular maps are bad has a lot more to do with the game looking bad than their dated by last gen standards tech.
I think this video is a great explanation of 3d art and rendering techniques to non-artists, something which i think DF has been not very good at in the past. Fantastic video for that alone.
But i think the last bit about how the actual assets and specular maps are bad has a lot more to do with the game looking bad than their dated by last gen standards tech.
Well that explains that at least, good to know this means good things for other parts of the game.
A ray tracing update could potentially just be for reflections too. Ray traced lighting would requite them to significantly bump down resolution. I'm not sure they are willing to sacrifice native 4K since it's a selling point they are pushing.
Isn't it running on a brand new engine though? Why would they make a new engine that's tailored for old hardware and rendering techniques so late in the generation?
Love DF but this is mostly just an analysis on the visuals. Which is fine since that's DF's thing, but the sandbox, gunplay, environments, and everything else is what seems amazing so i'm already sold even if the visuals stay the same.
Definitely agree with Alex that the game seemingly being unimaginative in regards to how the convenant looks.
The game was originally an Xbox One game and was delayed to rework the story. It's been in development for over 5 years now so next-gen wasn't really a thing yet back then.
Add it to the pile of a hundred other questions I have about what we saw in this demo.
Lighting is just one of the problems with the demo, as Alex states, the textures in general are kinda dull as well as the rest of the effects like explosions, and shields. No amount of raytracing will fix wallguy 2.0 models IMO
Oh hell yes, watching this in a moment. Digital Foundry has been so damn fantastic lately. I've always loved their work, but their format in the past year or so has just been really, really fantastic and more informative than ever. I lack the technical knowledge to express exactly what I love or don't like about a game's look, and they always help teach me how to better express these opinions.
Raytracing really should have been included at launch and used now to show off the series X capabilities like he was saying. I'd much rather have a lower resolution 60fps and raytracing than 4K and less lighting solutions.
Touched on it in the end there but the lighting is only the base of this games problems. Their explosions and textures also could use way more detail. Hopefully we do those get beefed up more before launch.
Touched on it in the end there but the lighting is only the base of this games problems. Their explosions and textures also could use way more detail. Hopefully we do those get beefed up more before launch.
That's how I feel too. It didn't blow me away graphically, but I actually like the art style. And that's fine.
Im still not sold on the issue with the grass. I know its really nit picky. But RDR2 seems to draw so much more foliage and grass at a way further distance at 4K on the Xbox One X. I understand its only 30fps. But surely we are looking at a big enough leap in GPU power for that to not really be an issue.
Well the engine creation began roughly 5 years ago, so its newly finished. It seems the main issue is the last gen dynamic lighting system in the engine. This system inherent to the engine is allowing old Xbox One S to play it. That's why they're working on ray tracing, which is obviously targeting the Series X.
Basically the demo was a Series X equivalent PC running a demo that was using lighting settings from 2015, and they intend to implement ray tracing instead of the engine lighting for Series X and higher end PC hardware.
Even so they've been touting how the Slipspace engine was very much next gen ready.